


No Romance, No Glamour

by starrymellie



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, bc that's my brand, he's so tired, jenna is goth deal with it, michael just wants to get to the bottom of this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-01 17:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11491296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrymellie/pseuds/starrymellie
Summary: When a seventeen-year-old boy tragically died at the local high school theatre when Michael was nine years old, he didn't give it much thought. However, when he arrives at the high school several years later, he realizes that the people there aren't so willing to let go of the past. Eight years after the incident, Michael sets out to get to the bottom of the rumors, and finds himself entangled in something much bigger than he'd ever imagined.





	1. Sunrise (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been sitting on this idea for a while and I think it's time for it to see the light of day. Hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Warning: This story contains depictions of violence, homophobic language, and major character death (though the character is still around-- the concept of death and dying is explored pretty extensively, however, so be prepared for that.)

Jeremy padded silently through the deserted halls of the school, his sneakers scarcely making a sound on the shining linoleum. There was something a little exciting about it, being in such a big building all by himself in the wee hours of the morning, listening for echoes through the halls and the flickering of the fluorescent lights as they came to life overhead. He supposed the excitement came from the lingering fear of surprise, the fear of being caught off-guard by someone else and realizing the corridors weren't so deserted, after all. That someone else could be anyone from an overworked janitor to a crazed axe-murderer. Jeremy continued on his path, humming an unnamed show tune. He wasn't scared.

On this day, Jeremy walked with purpose. He arrived at the detention room on the end of the second floor hallway and slipped inside. Looking through the row of windows on the other side of the classroom, he sighed contentedly. The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, basking the classroom and the town below in a hazy orange glow. Jeremy was glad that the school was on a hill, because he got to see the sunlight illuminating the downtown area one building at a time, rays dazzling off of window panes and damp shingles. He sat down in the back corner desk near the window and continued to admire the sunrise, gazing fondly at the pink wispy clouds above the school while he bounced his leg in excitement.

Any minute now, some kid would come through those doors. Not just any kid, but a _delinquent_. Sure, after-school detention was pretty bad, but the real troublemakers were asked to stay at school for a few hours early on Saturday mornings, depriving them of their weekend slumber. Jeremy remembered when those types of kids used to scare him—not anymore. He sat quietly and watched the teacher enter after a few minutes, an elderly man who looked bored and didn't give Jeremy a second glance as he sat in the large desk at the front of the room. Jeremy drummed his fingers soundlessly on the desk. _Any second now, c’mon…_

The doorknob twisted and Jeremy bit his lip. The kid shoved through the doorway, a hot coffee in one hand and a skateboard under his arm. He gave a cursory glance at the teacher, scowling, then stared directly at Jeremy, long sections of straight blond hair falling into his eyeliner-rimmed eyes. Jeremy grinned widely, not caring how creepy it might make him look. The kid blinked at him a few times before his eyes grew wide and he took a step back, opening his mouth and then closing it again. His hands shook and he dropped his drink, not seeming to care about the dark coffee forming a puddle at his feet, seeping across the tiles and underneath his beat-up sneakers. Jeremy winced slightly. What a waste of a perfectly good coffee.

“Clean that up, mister,” the teacher groused. The kid paid him no mind, his eyes still locked on Jeremy. A small whining sound escaped the back of his throat. Jeremy kept smiling, feeling flattered at the attention and trying to remain hopeful.

“Hello,” he said softly, resting his face in his hand.

The kid jerked, then turned heel and sprinted out of the classroom. Jeremy stood still for a moment before sighing and looking at the door longingly. Even now, it was hard to get people to hold a conversation with him, much less say anything at all. He missed Christine. After a minute, he got up and walked back towards the auditorium, smiling wryly nonetheless.

At least he'd met someone new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was the prologue! The rest of the story will be told from Michael's POV. If you're excited to see how this story unfolds, leave kudos or a comment! I'm very excited to be sharing this one. <3


	2. Visions

“What?” Michael said incredulously. “Fu-Freakin’...what, seriously?” He caught himself before he cursed in front of his mom, slumping over the table morosely with a moan.

It was too early for this shit. Michael vaguely remembered when he used to get excited for the first day of school, but now that he was a junior in high school, it was getting old. Getting up at 6 A.M. after a full summer of sleeping until noon held no sort of novelty for the seventeen-year-old. It was hell. His mother and older brother seemed annoyingly awake and had presumably already been caffeinated. Michael wished, not for the first time, that he liked coffee enough to want to drink it.

“Stop being a noodge, Michael, you know why your brother has to borrow your car this week. It's just a few blocks, it won't kill you.” Michael’s mom hummed, dropping a filled paper bag lunch on the table in front of Michael’s folded arms.

“It just might,” Michael grumbled, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah, don't be a bitch, Mikey,” Alan grinned and walked over, mussing up Michael’s hair.

“Uy, Alan! Watch your mouth!” his mother scolded, but Michael could tell she was holding back a laugh.

Michael swatted at his brother’s hand and protested halfheartedly but couldn't help but smile. Alan was a sophomore in college, but he just commuted to school from home since New Brunswick was only half an hour away. It saved them a ton on room and board, according to Michael’s father. Michael was glad; as much as he loved to hate him, he would miss Alan if he moved out. They were close.

“C’mon, at least _pretend_ to be excited for school,” Alan said. “You're still researching ol’ Crimson, right? If that ghost journal of yours is anything to go by, your junior year is gonna be way more interesting than mine.”

Michael perked up. He was right! Sure, researching an old, spooky school legend seemed like a waste of his free time to anyone else he told about it, but after last year’s incident at the play, he was fully convinced that there was a real supernatural force dwelling within Middle Borough High. Michael had started researching it on his own last March and had continued over the summer, but he’d run into roadblocks early on; the fact was that there really wasn't much information on the ghost at all. Going back to school, he would finally have more opportunities to explore its mysteries. But still..

“You sure you gotta steal my car _today_? You can't just...wait until school to start before you start the internship?” Michael may have loved his brother, and he may have been excited about the ghost, but he still didn't want to walk.

“No can do, Mikey. Semester doesn't start for another week but they still need me at the hospital at 8, starting today,” Alan gulped down the rest of his coffee and shoved almost an entire piece of toast in his mouth. “Speaking of which, I gotta run,” he said, words garbled by the bread in his mouth.

“Good luck, baby,” Michael’s mom said, smoothing out the front of his brother’s scrubs and kissing him on the cheek. Alan chewed and swallowed, returned the kiss, then walked out the door, a spring in his step.

“Hey, _Nanay_?” Michael asked, trying to shove his lunch into his already-overstuffed backpack.

“Hm?”

“What time is it?”

“It's nearly 7:15. Hey, shouldn't you be-”

“ _Shit!_ —I mean— _shoot!_ ” School started at 7:35, but Michael suddenly remembered his texts from last night. Jenna expected him there at 7:15. He was so fucked.

Michael barely had time to tame his bedhead with some water and gel and brush his teeth before rushing out the door, shouting a quick goodbye to his mom, who looked on bemusedly. From his house to the school was about a ten minute walk, he guessed, but even though he was already late to meet Jenna, there was nothing in Hell that would make him _run_ to school. He sighed and picked up his pace into a brisk walk.

By the time he got to the main lobby, he was still early, technically. Some confused freshman wandered the halls, taking it all in, but not many of the typically-late upperclassmen had arrived yet. He quickly made his way down to where he knew Jenna would be, in the nook in the hallway of the downstairs science wing. There she was, sitting against the wall and tapping away on her phone, as usual. She was wearing a collared black dress with leggings and boots underneath, and Michael noticed that she'd redone her roots (black) and had also gotten some new acrylic nails (also black). In short, she looked like a chubby little vampire. Not someone Michael would ever want to fuck with, to be honest, and that wasn't even considering her reputation.

“Hey, Michael, you're late,” she said, standing up and crossing her arms. When he tried to stammer out an apology, she just smiled at him. “Did you hear about what happened with Dustin and Madeline?”

Jenna had dirt on _everyone_.

Michael greeted her with a one-armed hug, and Jenna reached up and tried to ruffle his hair playfully, but she was so short compared to him that she just ended up kind of scratching his head. Her claws kind of hurt his scalp, but it was okay. He batted her hand away, laughing.

“‘Sup, Jenna, how was your summer? And no, I didn't hear, what happened?” Michael questioned as they both sat back down in the secluded area of the hall.

Jenna deigned to answer the first question. “Eh, it was alright. Had a shitty job at Foodtown but I made a lot of cash. The Bertuccis decided to keep me for another year, look at me, I'm still here.”

Michael smiled. Jenna lived with foster parents, a sort of endearing large Italian family on the other side of town. They were all big and loving and loud, and Jenna often complained to Michael about living with five foster siblings, but he knew she secretly liked it there. She'd been living there for almost three years now, and she’d confided to Michael last month in a late-night text that it was the longest she'd ever spent with a foster family. He was glad Jenna was still around; otherwise he'd have no one to talk to in school.

“Maybe they'll adopt you this year,” he said. “How’s Donna?” Donna was Jenna’s foster mom, a loud lady with fluffy bleach-blonde hair, lots of wrinkles from smoking, and a mean pasta fazool.

Jenna nodded thoughtfully, setting down her phone for a moment.

“Maybe. She's good.” She shrugged at Michael. “Alan doing good?”

“Off to his first internship today,” Michael sighed. “Saint Peter’s Hospital. He stole my car so I had to walk. That's why I was late.” He gave her an apologetic look and she brushed him off.

“Hey it's no big deal, I was just pulling on your dick earlier. Speaking of pulling on dicks, I _finally_ have someone to share this with face-to-face,” Jenna said, unlocking her phone to read another Twitter notification and grinning evilly. “Maddy Blanc put Dustin in the hospital with a blowjob.”

“Dustin _Kropp_?” Michael leaned in, ready to hear whatever piece of juicy gossip Jenna had to share. “Like, captain-of-the-football-team-as-a-sophomore Dustin Kropp? Senior class _president_ Dustin Kropp?” Jenna nodded. Michael prattled on, laughing as the words left his mouth. “With a _blowjob_? What—What the fuck?”

“Her braces caught on his foreskin,” Jenna said, very matter-of-factly. Michael cringed—his dick hurt just imagining that—then burst out laughing again.

“Need I say more?” Jenna sounded immensely pleased that she had made Michael laugh. He shook his head, wheezing.

“No, no, nonono I'm good, I just—holy _shit_.” He actually wiped a _tear_ from his eye, still chuckling. “Popular kids are fucking _wild_.”

Jenna nodded. “You know it.” She was staring at his arm. “Is that patch new?”

Michael followed her gaze to his new patch and felt his face heat slightly with embarrassment. It was a small cloth patch of the gay flag. He’d felt so confident sewing it on last week, but having it called out for the first time by someone else suddenly made him nervous.

“Uh, yeah, it is. My cousin got it for me when she went to Pride in June. Do—Do you like it?”

To his relief, Jenna nodded approvingly and smiled. “Very much. Relax, Michael, it's not like you're coming out to me. You told me you were gay when we were freshmen. I'm proud of you.” She hesitated, looking him in the eye. “Be careful, though. Eric Henderson still exists.”

Michael cringed. As always, Jenna was right; Eric was their long-time bully (though he had stopped picking on Jenna as much once he found out that she was the one spreading nasty rumors about him every time he called her a “goth bitch”). He would have Michael’s head in a toilet bowl if he saw the patch. Michael obviously hadn't thought this through. He covered the patch with his hand and looked around nervously. The hall had become busier, but he still didn't see anyone he knew. Jenna was back to thumbing her phone, but she seemed to pick up on his nervousness and rubbed his arm.

“Don't stress, man. Worst comes to worst, you can always just take the hoodie off.”

Michael was about to try to explain to her why he _couldn't_ do that when Jenna, while scrolling through her Twitter, saw something that made her stop. “Oh, you might find this interesting.” She paused. “Are you still doing that thing with the ghost this year?”

Michael nodded, feeling the sense of purpose from earlier that morning resettle into his bones. Remembering the incident at the play last year, his vow from the last day of school, all the research he did over the summer.

“Yeah, I am. Signed up for Theatrics 1 and everything.”

Jenna raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Wow. Look at you, mister thespian.”

“I know, it's stupid.”

She shrugged and glanced down at the phone again. “Not really. You wanna hear this or not?”

_Wait._

“Dude, you're not telling me there's been another ghost sighting _already_.”

Jenna shifted slightly under Michael’s gaze, looking between him and her phone. “What if I'm saying there was?”

“ _How_?” Michael turned to face her, throwing his arms in the air. “School literally _just_ started. The first bell hasn't even _rung_ yet. Who the hell says they saw it already?”

“Tyler Lampmann, apparently,” Jenna said, cocking a brow. “The super senior? Kinda got a Kurt Cobain look going on? Apparently he was here two days ago for some summer...detention...thing. Not surprising, ‘cuz he was probably in summer school. He skips, like, all his classes during the school year or something.”

Michael listened intently, but motioned with his hands for Jenna to get on with the story. She sighed.

“Well, anyway, he apparently walked into the upstairs detention room and the ghost was just sitting there. Like, ‘chillin’ in a desk,’ so he says. He also said it was all translucent and shit, with the sun shining right through it. And, it tried to say hello but he ran away before it tried to touch him or say anything else or whatever.”

“Like something right out of a science fiction movie,” Michael mumbled, rifling through his bag for his journal. “Fuck. That matches up with other reported sightings of the ghost in that room, too.”

Jenna made a face, staring at her phone screen. “Obviously I'm heavily paraphrasing from his thread of tweets made from the day of the event until now, which are mostly just keyboard-smashing in caps lock.” She turned the phone towards Michael, emphasizing her point.

Michael pulled the journal out of the bag and flipped to the back. The front was filled with song lyrics and little doodles and a list of his favorite video game boss battles, but at the back, he'd dedicated several pages to logging information about Middle Borough’s supernatural phenomena. He figured that if he started from the back and worked towards the middle, other people would be less likely to discover and read his findings if he were to lose the journal for whatever reason. He pulled out a black pen from his hoodie pouch and carefully logged the entry:

 ** _Current date: September 7 2023_  
** **_Date of sighting: September 5 2023_**  
**_Location: B2 (detention rm)_**  
**_Time: ??_**  
**_Victim: Tyler Lampmann (senior)_**  
**_Details: Reported seeing ghost “chilling in a desk.” Transparent qualities to the form were present. The ghost reportedly tried to interact (say hello) but the victim escaped before it engaged._**  
****_Source: Jenna Rolan_

Jenna leaned towards him and read over his shoulder. “Holy shit, what is this, _Ghost Adventures_?”

Michael shook his head. “This is serious shit. I've been tracking these “sightings” and incidents since the middle of last year, you know that. I also took some time over the summer to add some backlog on incidents that were reported before I started actively recording them, from what I could find on social media and the Internet, and some even before we went to this _school_.” He flipped forward a few pages, showing her.

“Okay, Zak Bagans. We’ll talk about this later. The bell’s gonna ring in, like, a minute.” Jenna got up and brushed herself off, Michael following.

She was right; as if on cue, the computerized bell noise toned through the hall. Jenna did finger guns at him and Michael clicked his tongue twice in pairing, and they went their separate ways. A strange girl, she was. But Michael supposed he was pretty strange, himself. They were two of a kind.

“Oh, good luck in drama!” Jenna called to him over her shoulder, a few feet down the hall. “I heard there's a new teacher!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” Michael called back, wondering how Jenna was always one step ahead. As he settled into his seat at the back of the classroom for his first class, just about to grab his GameBoy Color and tune out his English teacher droning on about the syllabus, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

 **7:36AM**  
**> GossipGrrl:** Go catch some ghosts for me gayboy >:)

  
*              *              *

  
As it turned out, Tyler was in Michael’s art class, which he had right before lunch. He'd been sitting on one of the tables when Michael entered, emphatically regaling a group of other students with tales of his ghostly encounter. Michael sat near enough to hear him and was able to gather more information about the sighting: it had been a human form encounter (“He was just like, this _see-through kid._ ”), and it had been in the early morning (“Bro, I had to be there at, like, the fuckin’ _asscrack of dawn._ ”). Presently, Michael sat across from Jenna at an otherwise empty lunch table, adding this information to the log. Once he was done, he set the journal on the table.

“So, what's this about a new drama teacher?” Michael asked, unwrapping his sandwich and taking a bite.

“Mrs. Harris left after last year, apparently. Good riddance, nobody liked that old hag anyway. The new teacher is young, though. I think I saw her in the hallway earlier today, she's kinda cute.”

Michael snorted. “‘Kinda cute?’”

“No, not like that!” Jenna backtracked, her face growing a little red. “She's this short little Asian girl, can't be more than five feet. She almost looks like a high schooler, she's gotta be right out of college. She also seemed really busy, she told me that she hasn't even gotten to go to the auditorium yet.”

"Okay, but what's got you all bothered?"

Jenna looked down, her cheeks still tinged pink. “She saw me staring and told me she loved my boots and asked me where I got them.”

Michael said nothing, just waggling his eyebrows at Jenna and laughing when she flipped him off, a single black, pointed nail shooting into the air like a tiny spire.

“You could really hurt someone with that thing, y’know,” Michael laughed, gently pushing her hand down to the tabletop as if she had been waving around a knife. Jenna hummed and drummed her nails on the cover of Michael's journal. _Cl-cl-cl-click. Cl-cl-cl-click._

“So,” Jenna started again, swirling her straw around in her cafeteria smoothie, “what do you think?”

“About what?”

Jenna gestured at the notebook. “The ghost. You're the one who's been up its ass for six months. What's your theory?”

Michael sighed, and Jenna leaned in, opening the notebook to a random page and examining Michael’s scribbly handwriting upside-down. He doubted she could read it.

“Let me guess—these _sightings_ aren't giving you as much insight as you thought.”

Michael sighed again. He didn't want to tell Jenna that he didn't _have_ a theory yet, because what kind of answer would that be—but he really didn't. The whole thing remained a mystery to him.

Michael knew some things about the high school’s ghost. He knew that it was referred to by a variety of names that had to do with red (Crimson, Crimson Helm, Crimson Wraith, Old Crimson), though these nicknames were almost certainly derived from the school colors (red and black) and not from the ghost’s actual appearance, as none of the sightings reported significant red characteristics. He knew that some people could see it and some couldn't, but he didn't know why. He knew that the ghost very rarely caused incident, and was even more rarely seen, only once or twice in the past several years, though last year there had been _four_ sightings. Tyler wasn't the first person to see it in the detention room; two of the sightings from last year were there. He knew that the most supernaturally active area of the school was the theatre, with the most incidents reported there over the past several years. The drama kids had been attesting for years that the auditorium was haunted, specifically backstage, but none of them seemed to know the origin of the myth, or for how long it had existed.

“It's weird,” Michael said finally, finishing off his sandwich.

“How so?”

“Well, ghosts result from tragic, usually violent deaths, right? I spent all summer trying to find out if anyone had ever died in this school, and there was _nothing_. Zip. Nada. I mean, if a kid had tragically died here, people would remember, right? It would've been all over the local news, maybe even state news. But I couldn't find anything at all. Not even a name.”

“Really?” Jenna looked puzzled as well.

“Yeah, look,” Michael responded, flipping all the way to the back of the journal—the first page of the ghost information. “When I started this info log last year, I left a big space at the top of this page to write the name of the victim. Who the ghost was before they were, well, y’know, a _ghost_. I thought it'd be easy, but I still don't know anything.”

“You're right, that’s really bizarre. I wonder if there was some sort of coverup,” Jenna mused.

“Jenna, don't just—Of course _you_ would assume murder, you—”

“Oh shit,” Jenna interrupted, staring at something past Michael’s left shoulder.

“What?”

Michael followed Jenna’s gaze and felt his stomach drop when he saw what she was looking at. In the opposite corner of the room, surrounded by a posse of other guys who looked more like primates than high school students, was Eric Henderson. And he was staring right at Michael’s patch. Michael tried to whip around before he could make eye contact, but he caught Eric making a _you’re dead_ motion at him, dragging a finger across his throat. Michael tensed and looked at Jenna, feeling a nervous sweat break out across the back of his neck. Before he could say anything, the bell rang. Jenna stood up and watched Michael frantically try to shove everything into his bag and get out of there as fast as possible.

“Just remember, I've got your back,” she said to him as she struggled to match his hurried stride. “If he fucks with you, I might just _accidentally_ let slip that he wet the bed until he was in fifth grade.” She winked at him, and they parted ways.

  
*              *              *

  
The rest of the day passed by agonizingly slowly. Michael was simultaneously eager to get to Theatrics (which he had last period) to potentially find out more about Crimson, and anxious to leave the school as soon as possible to avoid being confronted by Eric. The aforementioned bully inconveniently happened to be in almost all of Michael’s afternoon classes, and Michael could almost feel two holes burning into the back of his skull where Eric threateningly glared at him from two desks behind, class after class after class.

As soon as the bell rang at the end of Precalc, Michael was instantly on his feet and practically sprinting to the auditorium, an exhilarating mix of fear and excitement driving him. He collapsed into a theatre seat towards the back, panting a bit. He was the first one there, and the teacher was nowhere to be seen. He checked the time on his phone: the class wasn't even supposed to start for another five minutes. Wow, he had really run, hadn't he? He let out another deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair, waiting for the rest of the class to arrive.

He startled slightly when one of the side doors near the stage that lead outside squeaked open. A short girl with black hair squeezed through, holding a brightly colored, thin scarf to her neck with one hand and a large boba tea with the other. _That must be the teacher,_ Michael thought, remembering Jenna’s description. She didn't seem to notice Michael sitting there as she ascended the steps to the stage. She walked to center stage, set the tea down at her feet, and without warning, threw her arms out to her sides and produced the largest voice Michael had ever heard come from such a tiny person.

“HONEY, I’M HOO- _OOME_!” she bellowed, while somehow still managing to make it sound appropriately sing-song. She stood there for several seconds, still and expectant, T-pose and all. Michael was about to dismiss it as her just greeting the stage, it was normal, this lady was just a crazy theatre geek, but then.

Then, something strange happened.

Michael didn't know how to explain it, other than that she was tackled by an _invisible force_. She didn't just fall down—no, she was _knocked_ down by something that Michael couldn't _see_ , flying sideways about a foot and landing on her side with an _oof_ before rolling onto her back. Michael could feel himself staring wide-eyed, scarcely blinking.

_What the fuck?_

“Oh nonono, I didn't hit my head, don't worry,” she was saying, obviously talking to whatever (whoever?) had tackled her, which appeared to still be on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

“Oh, _Jeremy!_ ” she yelled, seeming to hug the invisible figure, now. “I missed you so much!”

_Jeremy?_

The new teacher abruptly froze in showering “Jeremy” with fierce hugs and pecks, seeming to listen intently, then turned her head and looked _directly at Michael_. Michael felt himself stop breathing. That wasn't creepy _at all_.

“Oh,” she said, looking at him for several long moments. Then, she recovered and stood up, smoothing out her skirt. She gave a wave to her invisible friend, who presumably exited stage left.

As if on cue, the other kids started to file in through the doors at the back. Michael gaped. None of them had seen what he'd just witnessed.

“You guys are here for the Theatrics 1 class right?” she said, her bubbly voice carrying throughout the auditorium. “My name is Miss Canigula! I'm new! You're in the right place!”

Michael staggered towards the front of the auditorium and took a seat closer to the stage, where the small class was gathering. Miss Canigula gave him a bright smile, but something in her eyes told him that she wanted to talk to him later. He felt a chill, his mind still racing.

During class, Michael listened attentively, trying to figure out this new teacher, how she somehow knew more about the ghost than he knew, even though she'd just arrived here and Michael had lived in this town for his entire life. He found out that she was only twenty-five, had acted in eight off-Broadway productions, was an alum of their high school, was working towards her Master’s in social work by taking night classes, and had a cat named Sprinkles, but nothing she said belied any other information regarding the earlier scene Michael had witnessed, or maybe he was just feeling too scatterbrained to make those connections. His mind kept replaying the scene over and over, the way she'd been toppled to the ground, the way she'd obviously been able to see and hear something that Michael could not, the “ _Jeremy!_ ”.

Sure enough, after the final bell rang and his peers began to file out of the auditorium, Miss Canigula’s voice rang out, clear and soft.

“Michael Mell?”

Michael jumped and turned to face her, halfway to the door through which he'd first seen her enter. He'd been trying to get out quickly, still keen on leaving as soon as possible in order to avoid Eric.

“Y-Yeah?”

“Can you come over here for a sec? I wanna talk to you.”

Michael felt himself shaking his head before he even thought about it, backing towards the door. There was too much, he had to get home, he needed to get away from Eric, away from _this_. He needed time to _process_. He stared into the darkness of the far stage wing, half-expecting to see something in the shadows. The curtain rustled, unprovoked, and Michael jumped again. _Jesus Christ_ , how had he never noticed how haunted this room was until _last year_?! He glanced at Miss Canigula, who was looking at him worriedly, then turned heel and bolted out of the auditorium.

“Wait!” she called, but Michael didn't. It was too late now to risk going to the front parking lot to catch the bus; Eric might be waiting. Michael ran down the hill in back of the school and continued that way all the way home, sneakers slapping against the sidewalk. When he finally arrived at his house, tripping through the threshold, he didn't even bother taking off his shoes before stumbling down the stairs to his room and collapsing onto his bed, letting the coolness of the basement soothe him. Michael breathed heavily, hot and sweaty and honestly, a little _scared_. He tilted his head back towards the ceiling and closed his eyes.

“Fuck.”

  
*              *              *

  
Later that night, after he'd had time to think about everything, Michael settled on his bed with his notebook in his lap. He flipped to the first page of the ghost log and, at last, wrote a name at the top in big, thick letters, circling it once.

 ** _JEREMY_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
> \- michaels brother is a nursing major at rutgers he's a big sweetheart i love him  
> \- but michael is just a noodge  
> \- goth lesbian jenna is the hero we need, but not the hero we deserve.  
> \- michael and jenna's friendship = gay/lesbian solidarity  
> \- the unlikely friendship that we all need in our lives  
> \- in case u didn't know, pasta fazool is like amer-italian slang for this italian bean soup its like. thick tomatoey soup with little pieces of pasta and beans and lots of grated parm It's Good  
> \- speaking of fazool i love jenna's Big Italian Family  
> \- i didn't make up the blowjob horror story, that actually happened to some popular kid in my grade when i was in middle school. we laughed about it for months  
> \- in case you're unfamiliar with the lingo "super senior" just means a senior who's been held back, so they're still a senior in high school but technically it's their fifth year of high school. it has kind of a negative connotation  
> \- jenna voice So You Really Like Ghosts, Huh  
> \- jenna doesn't believe in the ghost the way that michael does and it'll take a miracle for her to believe but she humors him because she's a good friend  
> \- Bro Why Is Christine Old Lol (the comments)  
> \- CLARIFICATION: jeremy and christine are not dating. she just loves him dearly as a friend and missed him, and she's an affectionate person  
> \- everything will start making sense soon.
> 
> kudos and comments are very appreciated and make my day!
> 
> i'm also mutantspit on tumblr if you wanna come say hi !!


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